338 AVES ISLAND. 



useless or onerous to liim, or indeed througli a mere wliim of his 

 mind, he loses his dominion over such thing, and the first occupant 

 thereof converts it into his own." (Laws 49, 250, tit. 28, part 3.) 

 " Si res pro derelicta Jiabita sit, statim nostra esse desinit, et occupantis 

 fit." (Escriche, Dictionary of Legislation — ad verhiim, abandoned.) 



But beyond this, the Latin verb derelinquere, from which derelict 

 is derived, signifies the same thing as abandonar in Spanish, which 

 means a man's voluntary disseizing, and forever, of his own property. 

 Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language^ after addu- 

 cing the etymology above referred to, defines the word derelict to 

 mean left, abandoned, as an adjective ; and as a substantive, in law, 

 to mean "an article of goods, or any commodity thrown away, relin- 

 quished by the owner. ' ' 



But why quote other authorities, when Mr. Eames himself, driven 

 by the force of things, has uttered the following words: "Not the 

 slightest doubt or difficulty can grow out of the fact, to which the 

 undersigned has been referred, namely, that the captaincy general of 

 Venezuela having been established in 1751, was the last of the conti- 

 nental governments constituted by Spain and embraced that part of 

 the continent of America which had not been comprehended in the 

 several continental governments previously formed. Because all the 

 territory of those continental governments originally formed a part of 

 the jurisdiction of the government of St. Domingo, and they were 

 successively cut off from that jurisdiction. But besides this vast con- 

 tinental territory, the government of Santo Domingo, as appears from 

 the laws of the Indies, published in Madrid, 1786, book 2, tit. 15, in- 

 cluded also all the Windward Islands, among which, as we have seen, 

 is found the Aves in question ; and this group of islands never was 

 separated from that jurisdiction by Spain, nor assigned to the jurisdic- 

 tion of any of the continental governments, much less to that of Ven- 

 ezuela, which, in the beginning, was a dependency of New Granada, 

 and thus continued until the year 1751." 



If the government of Santo Domingo comprehended all the islands 

 of the windward among which Aves Island, now in question, is found ; 

 and if this group of islands never was, by Spain, separated from that 

 jurisdiction, nor assigned to the jurisdiction of any one of the conti- 

 nental governments, it is evident that it was reduced to the possession 

 and embraced within the jurisdiction of Spain, to which Santo Domingo 

 belonged. Let this acknowledgment be viewed in conjunction with 

 the one subsequently made by Mr. Eames, namely, that it was Spain 

 that discovered the Aves. 



The Aves, therefore, being derelict, as it is called by Mr. Eames, 

 must have had an owner, because, on the contrary, no one abandoned 

 his property in the island with the intent never to claim it again as 

 his own ; and it could bear no other appellation than that of a thing- 

 common to all, both before and after its discovery, under the supposi- 

 tion. that every one who chose might visit it, and make use of it, going 

 off immediately and leaving to others the privilege of doing the same 

 thing. 



It being thus established that, even in Mr. Eames's view, the Aves 

 belonged to some power, and was by it abandoned, and it returned to 



